Greetings fellow creative enthusiasts!

It has been a while hasn’t it? It’s nice to see you — Really, it really is… 🙂

In the leave of our absence a lot has been going on with me — but… I only want to touch on all that briefly (if you don’t mind), because it is but a precursor to what revelations and thoughts I’ve uncovered in my own consequential personal growth which followed.

And i cant wait to share and hear your thoughts

So, here we go — My life since I’ve last seen you, in brief — I : 1) Went broke and found it difficult to write or be inspired while so low on the funds which I use to pay my rent and bills, 2) had a 6 year relationship end, leaving me missing a roommate, a lover, and a feeling like I’d gone missing a limb, 3) Managed to find a niche employment opportunity within my industry which makes me a little more money (and has gotten me back to some kind of normalcy financally), 4) Found a replacement roommate (an old friend), for my X — and now it feels like I’ve weathered some storm and have finally gotten back to some sort of business as usual.

Usual for me at least. HaHa…

All of this /\ took a long time for me. I was in a funk, to say the least (and as one might expect, I know I did), and I knew I just had to give things time — time, as they say, heals all wounds: an axiom I believe — while working hard as hell to secure my finances, and merely find myself again and seek balance.

All the while my completed book beckoned for an edit, pleaded for me to incubate its sister (the second in the series), and bellowed in pain while asking me to write a blog — its dear friend — but I found that I simply couldn’t get to the computer and sit still to organize my thoughts. I felt like a horrible person. It weighed heavily on me.

Just like that!

My friends, you’ve been on my mind. 🙂 So again, It’s really nice to see you all.

With my last post I’d broken my own taboo. I’d once promised myself, “No Politics!”, shouting it at myself like a hardened warden would to a prison full of his inmates, and yet in the end — I’d broken my own word with my last post…which has been echoing within me throughout my break.

In the beginning I ‘d wanted this blog — this shiny, beautiful new life I’d planned on bringing into this crazy world — to be pure.

I wanted this place to be a hallowed haven for ideas, opinions, creativity, and (and certainly most importantly), TRUTH. Real truth… honest truth…TRUE TRUTH! Truth that could span the test of time, and which we could share and grow upon together as a community — a community I would attempt to unite, like some city-boy attempting to tame a wild bronco on the open desert plain (I never saw the cactus coming…).

Politics would have no place in this revered space, this hallowed ground. How could it!?

Announcing that you are a democrat or republican, EPP or PPS, socialist, capitalist, nationalist, anarchist — WHATEVER… — playing the “Politics” game would accomplish nothing. I wouldn’t care! And, (I figured), neither should my subscribers. If I want the right people — MY people — reading this here blog, than there would certainly not provide, nor permit, there to be any labels for which to hide behind.

If we wish to benefit from the world at large in the best possible way — which, lets face it, is what we’re doing here; You, I, and the rest of us — than we would have to concede that it would be our differences that give us the most to learn from one another. Our unique perspectives shared. You see, uniting under a banner prevents that. It prevents organic points of view — the very place within us that’s born, and which lives, in our world and knows just what’s needed for good honest change — from surfacing. Replacing it instead with associates and a genially agreeable disposition.

You become a drone.

It's ok if you dont get it...

Look ~ basically it boils down to this: You want to debate the merits of tort reform here, be my guest. However, if you insist that republicans are simply the best, just the bees knees, and your reasoning is that they’ve got, collectively among all the men, the worlds biggest… Bank accounts… which is precisely what swells them with power, I’d not be able to find my virtual boot quick enough to kick you out of here (never doubt it people, we bloggers have this tool… and beware! It hurts!).

No sir. Not here. Not in my chapel.

You see I’d previously assumed that what happens in Washington was simply too corrupt and unworthy of my attentions praise. That if I spent time writing about it, that effort would be all for naught once a new individual was elected to our “Throne”. I figured that with time these people, with their Devonian minds and medieval belief system, would eventually devolve from their ranks up-high and the world as a whole would heal and grow unabated into the real future, the future without them pulling the strings to which we’re tethered — and finally we’d all be unchained, freed finally from their complex intellectual prison. And I believed we could exist separate of each other until that joyous time — Politics, Politicians and I — but, dear readers, during my queer absence I’d learned a thing or two about all this.

We are intractable.

Before my break I knew that I didn’t know nearly enough about all this, but during it I attempted to broaden my awareness about just what’s going on in the world: With the riots and rampant worldwide economic collapses; With the lies behind the smiles, and with the differences between the “news”, and the News; And, and if I could manage, I wanted to learn these things not just in my home here in the US, but rather how they were relevant in perspective of the whole world!

~~This is what I’ve concluded from this journey~~

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~~People… I think we’re in a heap of trouble~~

Pop Quiz!

What do;

Oil… Riots on wall street… Riots and revolutions around the world… The national debt crisis in the US(/and 10+ nations around the world)… The war in Iraq… Our national/Worldwide electrical grids… Lack of jobs… Food quality around the world… Law enforcement… Postal workers… Air traffic controllers… and more… Have to do with one another???? The Devil’s in the details…

Oil

(Peak Oil to be more specific)

Currently in the US we consume around 100 million barrels of oil a day. This glop. This clump of dead organic matter. This essential and finite linchpin of us humans is looking to prove our ultimate Achilles heel if we don’t act soon — because peak Oil has passed my friends. Worldwide production has been in a 8 Million barrel a day decline for some years now.

It’s running out…

Oil is everything.

When mankind discovered Oil it saw a population boom that made us the massive society we are today. 7 billion and growing… From the 7 Gallons that goes into making every single standard car tire that we drive, to the other refinements which power it, coat it, give it color, furnish it, and give it that fresh new car smell we all love, the truth is undeniable: Oil powers the way we move.

Trucks and boats ship it around the globe to be packaged in plastic, than ship it back around the globe to the market — More Oil.

We drive to pick it up at a store which keeps it at pristine temperature with electricity — More Oil still.

We burn it to turn generators that generate our power, giving life to the gadgets that will prepare the food and make delicious our fares — Oil, more Oil, and ever more Oil still!

Now, let me ask you…

What do you suppose would happen if all that Oil ran out…?

Saudi Arabia is said to have 25% of the global share of oil — the largest reserve on the planet — and yet they’ve resorted to offshore drilling as of late. Think about risk and return here. If the Saudis are running out they certainly wouldn’t tell anyone because that would start a revolution within a society that’s just started to grow due to the sale of this very same commodity — they couldn’t afford that. Their society would surely regress and then collapse without it.

So If Saudi Arabia, with the worlds largest swath of oil, has resorted to something nearly 50x more expensive to build/operate (meanwhile these are appraisal wells. They have no idea what refining costs will be until they see the oil that comes from the individual well. There is even a good chance that their investment will not yield, but rather cost them money in refinement. Think about what would push them to take this risk…), than we can assume that they’re out. And if they’re out, everyone’s out because if the sheer size of their reserves.

The only means of gathering Oil left to the world are becoming increasingly unbalanced in the “Product price .Vs. Energy investment” battle. And when that happens, no-one will invest in it, because no-one will be able to afford the product, or even the production of it.

Iraq therefore, and the war at large, was all about the Oil. Ten days after 9/11 and the plan to invade is already being written? In this country, where we’re known for being slow to act, that is a nanosecond’s nanosecond! The government knows that without Oil we would collapse as a society.

Need more evidence that we’d never planned to leave Iraq, just take a look at the recently abandoned Vatican city sized Military complex we put there, Camp Victory. We figured that we would march in there with our big American corporate mindset and backing, and make the Persian Gulf pipeline a reality so we could suck that baby dry.

But, in the end, what we discovered was horrifying.

~In the wells we’d planned to make in order to keep our Oil hunger surfeited we found only 90 Billion barrels total~

Remember, we consume currently upwards of 100 million barrels a day, meaning 90 billion would last us a grand total of — Two and a half years………..

Time is running out…

Do you see why I’m a bit freaked out? Recall also that we have a population boom in progress based on what Oil provides for us… Our modern lifestyle, with; electricity, warm food, supermarkets, roads, commerce, government, the post office, air traffic controllers, the police. All these seemingly unrelated things are united under the fact that they need Oil as a product being dealt actively in order to exist. The government knows that without Electricity we fail as a nation. Without Oil we currently cannot run. We need an alternative.

Let’s Check the Lineup!

Ethanol:

Is a joke. I mean really. Net cost energy vs. production ends up costing more energy to produce the stuff than you get from burning it, which is the very concept of “Net-Energy”. Plus it uses some crude oil in binding — which remember we won’t have. Also, for Ethanol to merely supplement a small percentage of what Oil provides for us today would take every bit of farmable cornfield we have! This should fall on deaf “Ears”. It’s utter nonsense… Next!

Atomic:

With a tremendous effort to build these behemoths, their production alone costs tons in energy — which we wont have. From the Oil that is used to melt the steel that forges the structure, to the specialized plastics that are utilized for workers modicum of safety, without Oil the structure itself would be an impossibility. Not to mention that we still have no way of dealing with nuclear waste. If we totally lean on Atomic energy alone to supplement Oil A) we still cant use any Oil based product, and B) we would have to continue building and maintaining containment vessels, which could pile on expotential energy costs over time. Again think about energy potential production vs. cost. Can’t be done, it’s illogical… Next!

Electric:

I always have to remind people that; Electricity is a product, not a resource. It is created using other means — mostly Oil. So all you and your electric cars are, are a proverbial Band-Aid on a much wider arching issue 😉 (Love my EV people). This is not an alternative unless we change the structure of our world, and fast — specifically to two more options much farther down the list.

Hydrogen:

Much like electrical energy and atomic, Hydrogen power still relies on an Oil source to manufacture a car. Not to mention the Oil energy that’s used tor refinement. Every piece of a vehicle uses Oil. Remember 7 Gallons of oil go into making every tire on a standard car — Over 20 on trucks. Not a viable option without the service that OIL provides us… NEXT!

Tidal:

Uses coastlines, and saltwater is very corrosive. Repair, and manufacture therefore rely on Oil to be done. Without Oil… You see where I’m going here? Can’t work… Next!

Solar:

I’ve been an advocate of solar energy for many years. Recently many innovations dealing with over excited electrons have been resolved, effectively doubling their efficiency, making their net energy gain greater than that of even nuclear power. Unfortunately what we fail to take into account with this option is that there is no infrastructure to carry the charge currently in place. We’re talking hundreds of thousands of cable line and transformers (which leech energy from the harvested charge the further we have to run it), that will make our production scale trumped by resources in the situation we find ourselves in globally. It’s possible, but doubtful. We probably needed to stop everything else and start building in 2009 if we wanted to have a chance at being ready for what’s to come. We didn’t. And here we are.

Wind:

Yet another great option, but again we have nothing built, and no one being hired to build them…..

So where does this leave us?

My friends around the world, our structure of society, having not been carefully calculated by the people who make/have made decisions in our stead, is seemingly poised to crumble. The key to prosperity’s door, which we once knew all too well (at and before the peak of oil), is fading away… Like all so many bubbles that swelled and ruptured before us, mankind is poised to pop from its surging 7 Billion person population — without our beloved supermarkets, cars, and paychecks many will be helpless to do anything at all.

This is what the rallies on wall street chant against boisterously without even knowing it. They rally for a better life as they witness the decline of their society begin before their eyes. Through the guise of our experiences has mankind shaped our reality to date, and the reality we’d shaped hadn’t been properly planned out. We’re in a hole from which we cannot climb out of easily nor quickly. It would seem we thought we could grow for ever, and possibly scrape the sky to be a god, but in our pursuit we might just have flown too near the sun and be currently engaged in a great floundering mid-air spiral toward our death as a species.

Survival of the species. Social Darwinism. Call it what you like. Times will be tough friends.

The Governments of the world, ironically the very people we should hope to look to for answers in this type of harrowing time, are themselves as well powerless to effect needed change in this instance, due to bureaucracy and entanglements with their respective central banks and their debts. They — Obama, The Republicans, The Tea-Partiers, Libertarians and all — all live in a prison of the reality our experience has shaped. Now what we are sensing, but not quite articulating aloud yet, on wall street and around the world — is that it all needs to go.

The whole thing.

The entire system.

We need to respect the scientific fact that infinite growth is not plausible for a species, and we need to learn to live within our means in regards to our impact on the planet. Indeed we need each other now. We need to figure a way of making a homeostasis of sorts here, on our home-world, so we can live in the world sustainably — Or we’ll die. It’s as simple as that.

Grow up or die world…And that’s it!

So that’s where my heads been these last few months. To me it’s like we’re all on a desert island with limited resources and we’re giving every supply we’ve got to one guy: the businessman. Our lives should not rest on him, nor any president alone. Were all in trouble here, and we’re all capable of thinking up a good scheme to help, yet we have no resources for which to act. So there we are; angry and starving, and unable to beat the bloody businessman senseless and take what we want because even what he has is only merely a symbol, not a solution — and without energy, not gold or silver but energy, to back up that money, it’s worthless. Paper on an island can’t make the boat go. We don’t need paper, which we keep printing for some reason (I cant wait to take a bushel of 1,000 dollar bills in a wheelbarrow to go buy some lettuce), we need energy!

So yea… I’m over the depression and the helplessness that came with this weight, not to mention everything that was going on in my life added atop, and now I’m doing all I can to mentally prepare for what I hope to be a swift and painless, yet unavoidable, revolution — And now I’m also telling you.

When will it happen? Who knows. They wont release the data on how much oil’s left. I’d say certainly well before 2020, that’s for sure. And how long will it last? 20 years? I don’t care. I just feel lucky to be alive. You know why? Because for a long time id believed that there was a lot of good in this world that wasn’t getting out. Particularly from that 99% people keep talking about. And just the other day, I went to a 99% art exhibit over at the Chelsea art Museum and was reminded of something very important.

There’s Beauty in the world

With everything going wrong in the way we chosen to live, and it’s ramifications oozing sludge on the people in this world, creativity and invention are pressured and stifled. But extreme pressure is precisely what forges a diamond.

All this sludge — the businesses caught up in it, and the people…

our governments held hostage by it,

and the people who are enslaved within it

within a very real Pyramid Scheme type of social structure —

all this has been adding up for so long on the backs of the 99% that it’s gotten to the point where we can’t hardly breathe.

But, look there… Here comes the light.

These pieces are but a blade of light shining through the nightshades curtain which has been draped over our luminous ingenuity as a people for far too long. As I walked around this gallery at the behest of a friend, who himself was there to support another friends work, I was reminded of all the good that will be released into the world once this cycle of pain and oppression ends.

We will be better.

We will be stronger.

We will be smarter.

We will be healthier.

A new world, is on the way.

Take Care Readers

(and mabye buy some seeds and learn to grow…)

Many ideas in todays blog were inspired by Michael Ruppert, in an interview documentary from 2009 entitled, “Collapse”. A very good watch.

Also, I fully plan on crediting the artists from the gallery, but it was an event so it’s not on their website yet, and I am waiting for the museum to mail me back a list of their names. I will update that soon. Thanks for reading!

Like this:

Today, my cool creative cats,

I’d like to welcome you all into the back hatch of my Mystery Machine. Go ahead, try a brownie — they’re divine. Let’s all take a seat around the huka here and politick for a bit about something that’s been stuck on my mind for quite some time now. It’s just a simple question really, one that has far-reaching implications if the answer is yes.

What's a guy got to do to get a Scooby Snack?

Are psychoactive drugs important for society?

Now dude… I totally get it. Your not-so-groovy instinct is to say “NO”, and then go run and tell mom that I’m high on something funny. But I’m serious here, and I think that this question should be taken into honest consideration for a change.

The thought got lodged in my mind indefinitely at some point over the last two years when I was having (as per usual), far too deep a conversation with someone in a setting that was highly inappropriate for the idea itself to be expressed (probably a bar, or a nightclub) — Sometimes I have trouble turning my mind off. Anyway before I go on I would like to apologize to whoever it was (as I can’t remember — sorry on two counts), but also I would like to thank you, as things and thoughts like this truly make me feel alive. The topic of conversation which I had brought up at such an inopportune and inappropriate time, had to do with our cave-dwelling ancestors and, more specifically, their potential relationship with the good ole’ wacky-tobacky.

We started off, as I remember, speculating on the likelihood that ancient man/woman had burned some of the weed (as we would do well to remember that marijuana is a natural weed which grows with nearly no provocation whatsoever), in their nightly campfire to stay warm. Perhaps they had wandered into a new part of the woods, perhaps they had noticed other animals hanging around the stuff, but for whatever reason: they found it, they burned it, and they partied on it — inevitably creating what had always been destined to become the first Cypress Hill concert in history.

Being that at this point of the evening I had more than a few Johnnie Blacks doing the backstroke in my liver, I was more than happy to speculate VIA modern dance what these wondrous first nights must have looked like. I tend to draw a crowd. Then my unwilling hostage to this inappropriate conversation (who likely wanted to run from my caveman dance impression, which could only be described as “The Elaine Dance” from Seinfeld, only worse), posed an interesting question — that surely he instantly regretted asking as it dragged him deeper into the depths of intellectuality when surely he wanted to, as previously mentioned, run away from it with all haste — and it was this; “Do you think they would have done it again the next night?”

And that was it. The lovely Sarah Ann dragged me out to the dance floor (where she’d been dancing alone while I was pointlessly pontificating with an unwilling listener over the exceptionally loud music bar-side), and I mumbled something crude back over my shoulder as I went, like “No doubt”, or “You know it”, or, and far more likely, “Duh, I dunno…”. The conversation had died, and I promptly turned off all further thought so that I might go out to the dance-floor and live in my Medulla Oblongata for the remainder of the evening (the only portion of my brain that knows how to dance).

Now surely this makes me a nut (lol, like there was any doubt up until this point), but ever since that night the seed of a thought has been stuck in my brain, like that sesame seed that now lives between your molars because no amount of floss has ever been able to get it out. My detainee might not have realized it at the time, but the chain of thoughts that he’d activated with that simple innocuous question has kept me up many-a-night wondering about life, creativity, technology, and all of their true origins.

Consider this: Ideas cannot come out of thin air. Generally speaking a “new” idea will come when something that’s known, is added to something else that’s known, with potentially a slight perversion (the individuals creativity whose idea it is dyes the mixture), to create something “new”. But is it really “new”, or just a better way of looking at/thinking about two other things that already exist? I would suggest the latter. So if our world (or its “NEW” ideas), is indeed based entirely on “what is known”, than I believe that we can safely say that “what is known” can be defined as the input that we take from our five senses (as originally that is all we knew about the world, and especially so when we look back at the original example of the cavemen-us which is where all this started. Remember that? Way back up there? I do. Good times, good times…).

That's it, I'm going vegan!

I can tell that I’m falling deep into the topic here, but I encourage you to stick with the conversation as i would love to hear all your opinions on this 🙂

So anyway, if the input of our five senses is all we know about the world than one has to begin to wonder, where did creativity come from? Specifically the type of creativity that relates to abstract thoughts, such as art (cave paintings), symbols (ancient jewelery), and tools (Spears, No not Brittney, hammers, and thirty-piece socket sets). This all brings me back to the original question, that was posed to me at an inappropriate setting for the conversation I’d needlessly started, with an individual that I can’t remember the name of, face of, or gender of (sorry), and of which I never got to answer: “Would they have gone back to the Forrest, plucked the weed again, and dropped it once more into their camp-fire?”

YES!

Of course they would have. In a time without the modern predispositions and prejudices against or for drugs, why wouldn’t they?

Let’s face it, life in ancient times must have been staggeringly boring. Fulfilling — as to complete your job with full competency all you had to do was learn to hunt and gather (Sign me up for that job! Not to mention that it comes with a 501k that starts to pay out in the twilight years of your late teens) — but nonetheless relatively monotonous. Each task that they would undertake would surely have had an expressed purpose. Forget fun, fun wasn’t yet invented, all they knew was necessity. Learn to fish so we can eat. Learn to run so you can flee. Learn to identify non-poisonous leaves so that we can make a shelter without getting a nasty rash. Learn to spot differences in the scenery so that we can stay alive (Knowing the difference between a hiding tiger, and an odd colored patch of grass is not only life-saving, but also the speculative origin of racial profiling — more on that in another post as I’m getting off topic). But what could be the logical purpose for creating art be?

Some might speculate that sex would be a main motivational factor, as these days being unique might find you a date, but since when has being different rewarded an individual within a group of like-minded (and, dare I say, simple), people? Think back to high-school…Today is slightly different from what it must have been like for prehistoric man anyway. Today members of the opposite sex can see the benefits of being different — one only has to look at the Bill Gates’, the Steve Jobs’, and the Mark Zuckerberg’s of the world for evidence of why — but this surely was not the case back in those days, being that no track record to the advantages of being different had yet been established. In those times acting different than the pack hinted at the notion that you might not fulfill your duties within the group when the group needed you. This would have made you a severe liability — these were life or death times folks. These were a people who lived and behaved in such a way so that they might stay alive. That’s it. That was enough back then. Any preformed behavior that was outside of their societal norm would have not only been wasteful, pointless, and just plain odd, but it would have also likely been seen as a severe risk to the rest of the lives within the commune. And if that different person was you, it would have meant that your life would be at severe risk in turn. Preservation of the species and all. Sorry.

This all brings me back to that wonderful night around the campfire.

An actual recreation of the night in question

Up until this point, these people must have been living the life of a logistical analyst. Live by the numbers. Do what works. Stick to the plan. Find a routine. There’s safety in numbers. Stay alive at all costs. There was no language, there were no symbols, there was no music, just the steady beat that was the rhythm of their hearts.

They light the fire…

Now all of a sudden you’ve got Ug in the corner using sparrow blood to paint on a scallop shell, Ehh-gu dancing around like a maniac (in the background going crazy), and Mary (there’s always at least one Mary), singing out of key along with the rhythm of Ehh-gu’s feet. None of them knows why they want to do it, and it doesn’t even matter: they’re having pointless fun!

Soon: Ug (the budding artist), is painting warnings on caves that bears live therein — so stay out; Mary has realized that her tones effect people in particular ways, and she’s working on her technique (which will someday become language); and Ehh-gu has figured out that the ladies flock to the rhythm of his funky flow (also his footwork has improved for when he goes on the hunt). All this occurred because a psychoactive drug had taken a group of individuals out of their heads, out of the norm, out of what they did solely for logic, and brought them into a parallel state of being. A silly one mind you, one that does not always produce results (Notice I hadn’t mentioned Rarr who choose to repeatedly slam his head into a rock while under the drugs effect [However Bam-bu took note of this and made a hammer the following day, so really it all evened out in the end]) but a state of mind nonetheless that can shake things up and make something happen.

Obviously if the pack of Neanderthals had lived their lives in this state of stupor the planet might be run by hyper-intelligent dolphins, rather than us somewhat intelligent humans, but because it was all done in moderation (once a night, and a very little bit), we were allowed to survive, and form the basis of society as we know it.

Us! (In a nutshell)

Now, before anybody gets any ideas, I’d like to clear something up: I am not advocating the habitual use of psychoactive drugs — regardless of how much it may seem like I am. I do however wish to point out that there is a possibility that they might be able to help us as a species (on occasion), shake our thoughts free from the prison of “The Known”, where they simply can’t help to be born. The mind is one giant pharmacist to begin with, and a temporary imbalance might be just the thing to help those scientists with “Writers block”, that are working on a cure for cancer, or aids, or whatever, think a fair margin out of the box so that maybe, just maybe, they might stumble upon a cure. Who knows?

Anyway, like I said, all this is only a question. Yes; they might help society, No; there’s not a snow-balls chance in hell, and why. That is all I ask of you all 🙂

The purpose of this blog is mainly to spark creative inspiration in my readers, so if nothing else I hope that at least I achieved merely that. Whether or not you agree that drugs might be beneficial (again; on occasion) to the uprooting of fixed and narrow-sighted thought processes, hopefully you’ll formulate a fresh opinion on the matter, and if you have… well then at least I got you thinking.

#5~ The Freemason Fraternal Order

Underground societies, cloak and dagger meetings, covert handshakes, secret passwords, clandestine ties to world leaders, and odd unknown (purportedly satanic), rituals; these are only a few elements to our number five greatest conspiracy theory of all time;

The Freemasons, and their secret fraternal brotherhood.

To say that the Freemasons are a conspiracy in and of themselves, is like saying that double rainbows don’t exist (they do, and what does it mean? It’s so intense…). There can be no doubt that this society of men – sorry ladies i don’t make the rules – exists, as a matter of fact not only is the society very much real, but they have Grand Lodge locations (their official meeting houses), set up in every major country across the globe. Better stock up on our water and canned goods people, because it seems to me that the takeover is upon us…

The first recorded masonic text is the Regius Manuscript, which is a poem found in Scotland that historians have dated back to the late 14th century. In the work, the unnamed author calls for the organization of, ” great lords and also ladies, That had many children together, certainly; And had no income to keep them with”, citing “the Geometry according to Euclid”, as their unifying factor. Sounds to me like even back in the early days of it’s inception, The Masons were looking to mobilize the lower class of Scotland to stand at their front line. Now i ask you: isn’t this always the first step while posturing to take over the world fellow creative poeple?

The initial lodges are rumored to have been in existence by the end of the 16th century in Scotland, but the first actual evidence that we have of the secret society getting off their lazy backsides and organizing something of measure, happened in late June, 1717, when four members in England began meeting once a week in a pub. The group quickly gained members and grew immensely in popularity (thanks in no small part to the booze of the pub I’m sure – but also and equally as important – was the encouragement that the group gave its blue collar brothers to express their free thinking, which was a oft overlooked necessity of their day to day lives), and quickly spread all around Eurpoe.

Though renowned for being free thinkers, the Freemasons nonetheless do not permit their members to speak about politics or religion in their meetings; but they do require that you acknowledge The great Architect of the Universe (GAOTU), or the supreme being, as the creator of all things in order to become an official member. In this way they can invite Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Jews, and Scientologists alike, as – to each man individually – the acceptance of the supreme being means something different, thus effectively spreading the Masons circle of influence ad infinitum across the globe.

Conspiracy theorists like to point to the fact that the group is set up in protective tiers, (with each lower tier oblivious to the happenings of the tiers above them), to elude to the possibility that only the highest ranking members know about the truth behind GAOTU: that he is not some random polytheistic figure – but rather Lucifer himself.

All the cryptic symbols of the alleged occult – embedded everywhere from The US, to England, to Scotland – are strongly reminiscent of the pentagrams that Pagans stand within when chanting for demonic rituals and rite. Since our very own George Washington was a open Masonite, and Washington D.C.; our nations capital, has many of these Masonic shapes forged out of it’s very streets, conspiracy theorists have further deducted that the entire foundation of the United States itself is based on Pagan and Satanic principals (though the whole Satanic thing might just be the result of an effective smear campaign, propagated by burned Mason member: Leo Taxil, who got back at the group for being excommunicated with what would later come to be known as the Taxil hoax).

Across the annals of history, The Masons have been credited with worldwide cover-ups (anyone see the Da Vinci Code?), scandalous murders (Jack the ripper killed in a manner strikingly similar to Mason tradition), ulterior identities (they’ve been called the true descendants of the city of Atlantis, The Illuminati, founders of the KKK, and even – I cant believe I’m repeating this – evolved Reptiles that wear human skin and walk among us…) and giving old ladies the willies. Regardless of what you think about the group, you sould know (preferably before you start speaking bad about them in public), that they are extremely active in membership – with over 2,000,000 members in the USA alone – and that they regularly give generously to charities; building homes in Louisiana, taking in aboandened children, providing funds to dispariaged nations, and just generally being a positive force in the world…

So, if you ask me (you didn’t, but I’m telling you anyway), even if they are reptilian demon spawn with a predilection toward world conquest, certainly we could be – and have been in the past – ruled by worse, and after all, this conspiracy is only just a theory anyway…. right?

Don’t stop now, only four more to go!

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#6 ~ The Mayans, and 2012

Ahhh The Mayans, and their their fabled Mesoamerican long count calendar. This seems like a good place to tuck this media-sponge into the list (why are we all suckers for the stories of our own destruction?), as it is a rather large sub-category to the Ancient Alien theory we’d just spoke of above. Rounding up number six on our list is a topic that’s garnered great public and media interest over the last few years (as I’m sure you already know), *drum-roll please*: The Mayans, and, dun, dun, dun… 2012 (THE END IS NIGH… hold me).

The Mesoamerican long count calendar – or the Mayan countdown to the obliteration of earth; as it’s known in Conspiracy circles – is unlike our traditional Gregorian calendar, in that it has a marked beginning and end. The start is believed to translate (imprecisely from their base 20 number system, to our base 10), to August 11th, 3114 BCE (before christian/current era), when the universe was created, and it’s end (presumably when the universe will be destroyed), is rapidly approaching… December 12th, 2012.

The ancient Mayans were a prolific people, and Conspiracy theorists often point to the abundance of knowledge that they had accrued (their culture thrived nearly 1,500 years ago), as inscrutable evidence of alien intervention. They had one of the earliest and most well developed systems of writing for any culture of its time, they frequently traded and exchanged ideas and goods with other peoples (quite possibly Peru, and Machu Picchu, which was only 2,000 some-odd miles north), and they achieved great successes in the fields of horticulture, acoustics, modern sewage systems, and, most notably, astronomy.

Many structures on the site are situated in key locations for star gazing (buildings E1, E2, and E3, are aligned north-south, and collectively form an observatory), and seem to elude to the notion that these ancient peoples were avid sky watchers. To advocates of the 2012 conspiracy though, stargazing is merely parenthetical information surrounding the larger truth – that these buildings had been erected to watch Ancient aliens come in for a landing.

There are admittedly many variations on the story, but the prevailing lore states that – much like Peru, Egypt, Bolivia, and many other locations on earth with suggested evidence of contact with E.T. – the Mayans too had been frequently visited by space-men. Together with Alf, and using all his vast knowledge of the Cosmo’s, combined with her (see, i said her this time… not only his, get off my case would ya?), information about past, current, and future events to come, the combined cultures formulated a calendar that accurately pinpointed not only the proliferation of man, but also the upcoming date of some catastrophe that would lead to his demise.

How these beings from another world could foresee our demise, and what form it will take, is where the Conspiracy theory really get’s it’s wings. Multiple websites across the net have sprung up with their own fresh takes, and explanations on the matter (big surprise here).

My personal favorites are:

A) The Grey’s advanced technology has allowed them to peer into the fourth dimension, and with their greater perspective they can see some calamity on route for Earth. I enjoy conceptualizing about this one because to comprehend it’s implications, i first have to imagine how limited our “sight” here in the third dimension (where we live; for those of you who don’t know), actually is.

The only way I know how to do so is to consider how something locked in the second dimension (a being – let’s say a stick figure – locked to a peice of paper), might not see my coffee cup plummeting down infront of him until the cup makes contact with his midsection… being locked to the paper, and stuck in two dimensions, my poor stick-man lacks the ability to look “up” (much like we cannot look “up” into higher dimensions currently), and never even saw the glass coming. Even if he had, he couldn’t have done a darn thing about it, as he only exists in a plain that can be acted upon by me, not the other way around (at least he has dot’s in the first dimension to bully around).

B) Planet Nibiru… need I say more? Who hasn’t heard of this strange ominous planet lying in wait at the edge of our galaxy that’s just itching to destroy us? It’s either going to collide with us, rob us of our magnetic field, block our sun and freeze us, or slingshot us so near to the modest star that our planet will fry (now can we drink the Kool-aid?). Nibiru is a planet who’s existence is rumored to have been hinted at from still unaccountable wobbles in planets from our own solar system (get your sweaters, cause I’m about to get you geek chills), and used to be called Planet X.

In the early days of astronomy, we proved the existence of predicted (yet unobservable), planets not just by getting bigger telescopes, or advancing sciences, but by using the same old crappy ones and simply fine tuning our coordinates. How we knew precisely where to look came as a result of complicated calculations, that were the hard won result of years of tedious observation and record, that eventually led to the predictable, and mathematically chartable (<-yea i know it’s not a word, neither is squoze but i like that one too. I squoze a lime yesterday to make a vinaigrette :-P), orbit of what we could see. When the now known orbit of a body exhibited an unaccountable wobble – or a slight deviation from its course – a researcher could then infer that there was another gravitational body acting on the one that we could see.

One by one, from Mars all the way out to Pluto (R.I.P. Pluto: you’ll always be a planet in my eyes), we used this system of charting, wobble watching, and fine-tuning our findings to locate planet after planet in our galaxy’s “bubble” of the Milky Way galaxy, eventually forming the well known picture of it that we have today.

C) The next solar maxim – which should be here any day now… – will obliterate our magnetic shields, and fry us like eggs over-well (yep, when i talk about food you know it’s time for breakfast).

D) The black hole at the heart of our own milky way galaxy will grow mutinous, pick up in it’s speed of density gain and growth exponentially, and absorb us all into a timeless, endless – and unfathomably painful rift in the space-time continuum – where we will forever be on the brink of being dead and alive. Ouch.

Conspiracy theorists like to say many things about the Mayans and 2012; some are true (like if Niabru has no water on it’s surface, that it would not reflect light, and be unobservable until it’s too late, thus explaining why we still can’t see it), some are untrue (like the amazingly still persistent rumor that the Mayans simply disappeared… they didn’t, they were absorbed into southern Mexico, and central American areas, and still have many people who carry around their culture and lineage within their genes to this day), but without a doubt, they are all fascinating beyond comprehension, and worthy of being here on this list of greatest conspiracy’s.

Don’t stop now, only five more to go!

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Like this:

Ok kids, time to start drinking the Kool-Aid

(What? Too soon? Darn, I’ll have to try again next week)

Art is Magical; Living in the moment is an art form (can you already see where I’m headed with this?).

I woke up this morning feeling reluctant to leave my bed; somehow, my body knew it was snowing (how does it do that – seriously – is there a scientist in the house?). It was so warm there under the covers, so comforting, so peaceful… and, if I’d only let myself, I’m sure that I could have dozed off for another couple hours. As I lay there, debating what to do, my capricious mind insisted that I get out of bed: there were posts on the site to put up, an outline to finish for my second novel, a first chapter to spill out for the same work, dishes to wash, breakfast to cook, editing to do, etc… etc… etc…

What an illogical organ a brain is.

Where was my motivation? What was I going to write? Would it be any good? Would people want to read it? I didn’t know; and the uncertainty scared me. Uncertainty, much like a vampire (at least those that I know from Buffy the vampire slayer), can’t enter your brain unless you invite it to, though, unfortunately for me – I had just welcomed the blood-sucker directly into my subconscious.

Trepidation rapidly became my state of mind; it became my moment. Why should I leave the temperate, comfortable, cushy cocoon of my covers? The only answer my beleaguered mind seemed to want to offer up was: I shouldn’t. I could easily push back working on my second Novel (heck, the first one still isn’t even published), I’d only promised to do 2-3 posts on my blog a week – and here I am this week pushing seven or eight (counting all the little blurbs that go on my info pages) – dishes smishes, editing is for dopes, I could always order out food, what did I care? I was comfortable.

Luckily, I’ve been trained for this.

This is exactly why I love acting, and why I wholeheartedly believe that it should be taught in schools: motivation is only the backdrop to action. Sure I was comfortable, and unmotivated, so what? I didn’t have to force it (and you should never try to, this is what I believe to be the direct cause of all creative blockage plaguing artists worldwide – where’s that scientist at? Kindly take a note and do a case study would ya?), all I had to do was embrace my state of mind, and wait for inspiration to strike.

When you learn about acting (which, much like writing, cooking, art, or anything creative really, is merely a heightened version of expression), one of the very first things you’ll discover about its history is – over the long years of its evolution – a wide variety of philosophy’s have emerged, that all attempt to tackle the problem of motivation, namely: how to Act.

Some, like the Stanislavski method, take a very systematic approach to a scene. You figure out exactly what your character wants, what he’s after, and what he’s willing to do to get there. You then break a scene down into beats, or, in other words; shorter segments within the action, where you hit mini-milestones on your journey to attaining your predetermined, never-changing goal, and slowly work to fulfill the character arch that you have neatly set out for yourself.

There’s a problem here however. What happens if, on this day of theater when you’re supposed to play the happy-go-lucky-neighbor with the heart of gold, in real life: your dog died? Or, as it was in this case, you simply feel unmotivated to play the role that was set out for you? What are you to do? Act your way out of the problem – use your special acting powers (Team America: World Police anyone)?

Stanislavski’s method was eventually espoused by others (I should note here that, in his later years, Stanislavski altered his own teachings for being too static and unnatural in practice), the most notable of which were: Lee Strasberg, Harold Clurman, and Cheryl Crawford; who together founded the Group Theater in 1931 – right here in NYC – and maintained most of the rigidity from Stanislavski’s original practice. It was their cohorts who I would come to align my own belief system with, and it is their very technique that I would like to share with you all today.

Stella Adler, Sanford (Sandy) Meisner, and Robert Lewis, all broke with the Group Theater, and founded their own schools of thought on the matter, each with its own merits (and each worthy of your time and education), but all circumscribed within the same basic philosophy: Living in the moment.

Live in the moment

You see the one thing Stanislavski’s method could not take into account was the individual feelings of his actors on any given day; feelings that would color performances, and alter the moment to moment interactions between players. We are not mere machines to be programmed so that we might neatly execute a rote chain of commands and eventually achieve our goals. Sadly it just doesn’t work like that. We, as we are right now – right this very instant – are the end results result of a complicated life equation, with factors like; evolution, DNA, RNA, our epigenetic-code, the sum of our experiences, our diets over the last week (speaking of which, I’ve got to eat breakfast soon. It’s a shame I can’t just run on coffee), and also the way we were fed in the womb. With factors as colorful and mottled as this, how can we always be expected to perform at the top of our game?

We can’t. Sometime we need a little help.

The beautiful thing about the “New school” of American acting teachers, was that their emphasis had severely shifted from affective emotional memory (E.G. Stanislavski); where we draw on past life experiences (such as how easy it was to work the day before) to make us feel a particular way in a scene, to: living in the moment, and (after thoroughly learning who your character is), merely reacting – in the moment – to your current circumstances, rather than trying to live up to some unwavering, unrealistic representation of them you’d conjured in your mind before ever having stepped foot on the stage, I.E.: life.

“All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players.” ~William Shakespeare

The immortal bard was right; the world can, without much effort, be likened to a stage, and we are all merely players acting out our individual roles on it. If we don’t feel inspired, it’s perfectly OK. That’s simply our role for the day. Just make sure to get out of bed (I did, and nothing bad has happened yet… *Look out!*), and attend to the tasks that don’t require much focus. Trust me, if you’re open to it, inspiration will inevitably strike.

But, Mr.smarty-pants man, how will I know when inspiration strikes?

Well I’m glad you asked that question bold centered typeface, and my answer to you is: you might not. I didn’t today. I made it out of bed, I did my mindless task (the dishes are in the drying rack, say thank-you), and still… I had nothing. But, rather than plopping down to watch TV, or forcing some of my Novel’s outline to squeeze out of me like that last bit of toothpaste that just won’t come (and likely requires a steam-roller for its extraction), I instead jumped on my computer, and actively sought out inspiration from my fellow blogging community.

That is when i stumbled across ferrebeekeeper’s blog, which has to do with reflections on Art, Nature, and humankind in general.

Cool.

Art, being the ethereal intangible thing that it is, is the perfect medium (at least in this authors humble opinion), to aid in the lubrication of one’s thoughts. Take a long hard look at these two realist oil portraits done by native New Yorker, Steven Assael.

Club Kids (Steven Assael, 2001, oil on canvas)

Ask yourself, “How do they make me feel”, “What am I looking at”, “Who are these people”; that’s the beauty of Art – these are all are valid questions. Personally, I found myself in awe at how beautiful an image it was, while at the same time it depicted something that I had labeled in my mind (Gothic culture), as crude, barbaric, and even perhaps (I’m afraid to admit) silly…

I then came to my next chain of thoughts, that went something along the lines of, “Wow, that must have been an amazing time to live” (I suppose, being that what I was looking at was art, my brain automatically filed what I was observing under history) “Look at these people: what kind of world could breed such things?”

As I quickly came to realize – our world, and our time. Right now, 2011, there are people who languish in the rich Gothic world, and thrive under the wings of its lifestyle. It would seem that I had been far too judgmental (something I always try to keep in check, as it will only serve to keep my mind grounded), of this subculture, and had been entirely too quick to pass it over and assume that I wanted to distance myself from this aspect of modern life. Look at these portraits, these people, they’re beautiful…

Suddenly, as this realization hit me (and I opened my heart to something new), my creative block was lifted: I’d been inspired by the works of a fellow artist, and now the ideas had begun to flow. My mind flitted around various ideas and topics – like a butterfly in an open field of flowers – from the beauty on the screen before me, on over to the perceived impasse in my novel and blog.

I’ve got it!

And that’s all there was too it.

I’d experienced the fabled “Ah-ha” moment, and dined on the subsequent of fruit of my efforts, simply because I got out of bed, kept an open mind, and lived in the moment. By embracing the cold dreary day all around me, and letting it hit me however it would, I tackled a topic which (in my own imperfect mind), had been – in and of itself – cold and dreary: the Gothic subculture of our modern world; and look what beauty it’s wrought.

Silly boy… I should’ve known better: never pass judgment; merely remain observant, and keep an open mind.

Today creative people, I’d like to invite you all to not pass judgment – on yourselves. Remember that some days are easier than others, and, if you try to force your creativity, that it might turn on you and run away – never to return home again. Keep an open mind – at all times – and just be ready, because your next great moment of inspiration is just over the hill, you just have to have faith in yourselves to keep walking down that road.